Marvel may be riding high after the latest installment in the Avengers series launched with a billion dollar opening weekend, but their newest film, X-Men: Dark Phoenix is expected to be one of their biggest box office duds yet. While the film is expected to gross upwards of $285 million USD globally, production costs for Dark Phoenix sit almost $100 million USD higher at $350 million USD. These figures would give Dark Phoenix the worst domestic opening in the history of the X-Men franchise.
Dark Phoenix was touted as a climactic end to the X-Men franchise before it’s carted off to Disney but in reality, with losses expected to reach $100 million USD, the Sophie Turner-led movie is a final rusty nail in the series’ coffin. Clearly, fans are not showing love to the new film, and neither are critics. Currently, Dark Phoenix has a 23% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 43% rating on Metacritic.
Kevin Feige, head of Marvel Studios, has said that plans for the X-Men franchise to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe are at least five years off. Perhaps, this break will give the creators a chance to regroup and put forth a better product going forward. Marvel will have an opportunity to redeem themselves next month as Spider-Man: Far From Home is set to release on July 2nd.